Heineken Lager Beer has been around for way more than a century, as it was created on 1873, and the Dutch-based drink has become one of the most popular of its kind throughout the world, with even the most famous spy on film history, James Bond, drinking it - but now, as local breweries become more popular, there will be a new Heineken craft beer.
In a giant leap towards a new brand of Heineken craft beer, the Amsterdam-based brewery has just purchased 50 percent stake in Lagunitas, the fifth top selling beer of its sort in the United States, and they're now planning to expand the brand globally - and it'd be technically losing its "craft" denomination because of being half-owned by one of the biggest beer companies in the world.
According to Fortune Magazine, the new Heineken Craft Beer, Lagunitas, was founded on California in 1993 and has grown nationally in the U.S. besides expanding further to Canada and the United Kingdom, taking a spot among the biggest craft brewers in the country.
Currently, Lagunitas has two large breweries and it's looking to expand to a third one to allow its brand to grow further.
As BuzzFeed reports, Heineken's craft beer move follows similar other brands going big in the past, including how Blue Moon is owned by MillerCoors and Goose Island, Elysian and others are owned by AD InBev.
According to Slate, while the Heineken craft beer acquisition may scare off some of the more devoted consumers of this type of drink, recent history on the matter makes it clear that craft beers usually maintain their quality (or even improve it) when purchased by larger companies.
It's still unclear how much money went down in the deal that saw Lagunitas become Heineken's craft beer, but it's clear that sometime soon it'll be expanded throughout the world.
